Australia receives spoils of number one ranking

Australian Cricket captain Michael Clarke got his hands on the Reliance ICC Test mace on Wednesday, proof that his side is the number-one ranked Test side in the world.

"It's obviously very special, I've spoken about that in the last couple of weeks," Clarke said. "It's a fantastic achievement from the team, that's for sure but I think as we discussed the start of this week we still see a huge room for improvement as a team. We've done well to get there but a lot of work still to get to where we want to get to as a team."

Back on top ... Michael Clarke holds the Reliance ICC Test mace during a presentation at Cricket Australia Centre of Excellence on Wednesday in Brisbane. Photo: Getty Images

Australia returned to the top of the test rankings for the first time since August 2009 in May after sweeping an Ashes series and beating previous incumbents South Africa in their own backyard over the last six months.

The Proteas, who had topped the rankings since displacing England in August 2012, slipped below Australia after the results from the 2010-11 season were dropped from the calculations.

The Australians have also retained their top ranking in one-day internationals ahead of India, who have fallen from third to fifth in the test rankings behind the top two nations as well as England and Pakistan.

Australia topped the rankings from their inauguration in 2003 to 2009 before being displaced briefly by South Africa, with India (2009-2011) and England (2011-2012) then ruling the roost.